


The Element of Surprise

by merriman



Category: The Changeover - Margaret Mahy
Genre: F/M, Family, In-Laws, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28144314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/pseuds/merriman
Summary: Laura's mother is visiting, and so are Miryam and Winter, being chased by something they cannot identify. Laura has some decisions to make.
Relationships: Sorensen Carlisle/Laura Chant
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Element of Surprise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selden/gifts).



> Thank you so much to my Yuletide recipient for asking for The Changeover! I love this book so much and I was so pleased to get a chance to write in its world! Happy Yuletide!

With Jacko off to University, Laura found herself hearing from her mother more frequently. Kate would call, 'phone bill now reliably paid on time every month, and ask Laura trivial questions and Laura would give her meaningful answers. Of course she had Chris still there with her, married now these sixteen years, but Laura got the feeling that Kate missed being a mother, having someone at home to look after. Chris didn't need looking after, really. He never had. So when Chris got the chance to go to a librarians conference in Perth, Laura told her mother she should visit. It had been a while since she'd seen the house Laura and Sorry now shared, and they had room, so why shouldn't she come and spend the week?

It wasn’t really a problem, having Kate in the house. Sorry had grumbled a bit at first, mostly just to have a chance to grumble, Laura knew, but over the years he and her mother had gotten to be rather good friends. It was strange, Laura often thought, that they should end up being so close. But Sorry had gravitated to Kate once she'd stopped being so disapproving of anyone who might have designs on her daughter. Long before Laura and Sorry had married, but after they'd announced they were going to do so, Laura had come into the house one day to find Sorry and Kate at the kitchen table, discussing their favorite authors. That was that, their bond truly formed through literature. Now, with Kate there, Laura was likely to walk in on her and Sorry debating the relative merits of this book over that book or this author versus that author. She'd even walked into the kitchen find them discussing book jackets, of all things. So really, having Kate visit was fine and Laura was enjoying having her mother see her in her own home, safe and happy.

On the other hand, having Kate there, in the house, did mean they had to be subtle about the way magic had twined through their lives. No more heating the water for tea without turning on the kettle. No more flowers living out of season and long past their time in vases around the house. Sorry's birds came and went as usual, but he'd conjured birdfeeders from somewhere and they hung around the garden to explain just why the birds came round. When the electricity was out for an hour one morning - maintenance on the cables, they said - Laura almost laughed out loud when she realized she couldn't just turn on the light in the kitchen as she normally would even with the power out. She couldn't just make the room light either. Instead, she made tea the old fashioned way on the gas range with a banged up kettle and brought it out to the garden to share with her mother and Sorry.

"Lovely view you have here," Kate was saying as Laura set the teapot down and then turned back to the house for mugs. Her mother distracted, Laura called the mugs out from the kitchen and turned back to set them on the little garden table.

The view was very nice indeed, and was one reason why they'd bought this house even with all the repairs it had needed. And besides, repairs had been easy enough.

Laura took a seat and was about to ask her mother if she fancied a walk down to the estuary later when she noticed that Sorry had gone suddenly alert, his head cocked oddly as if he was listening to some sound no one else could hear. Before Laura could ask what was wrong, Sorry was up and walking back into the house and then Laura heard a knocking and the front door opening and suddenly there were Winter and Miryam in Laura's back garden. Stunned for only a short moment, Laura went forward to hug each of them in turn. 

"Hello! We weren't expecting you!" she said, not so much in reproach as in warning that they hadn't been prepared. She turned to gesture to Kate. "My mother's been visiting for the week. We'll have to make up the couch, I suppose."

Without missing a beat, Miryam nodded and smiled as she went over to Kate. "So good to see you! It's been since the wedding, hasn't it?" And Kate was nodding and smiling back, though Laura could see a tiny frown crease just between her brows. It soon smoothed as Miryam started to ask after Chris and Kate was distracted by the perfectly ordinary questions.

Laura, in her mind, could hear Sorry and Winter having a hurried conversation and quickly joined them. Always before, when they'd needed either Laura or Sorry for a working, the two older witches had contacted them first somehow. They'd never just descended upon them without notice.

 _"...dark and foreboding,"_ Winter was saying to Sorry. _"Ahh, Laura, good. Miryam will keep your mother busy. Bad luck that she's here, but then, that has been how it's gone this past two weeks. Bad luck, seeping into the farm, rotting the apples on the branches, tripping us on the stair. Just a little at first, but enough for us to know. Something is pushing at the shield we raised, trying to wear it down. And it's found little ways. No direct harm to us or to the land, but as I said, bad luck."_

 _"Something must be done,"_ Miryam added from the other side of the garden where she was, as far as the outside observer could tell, listening to Kate explain about the conference Chris had gone to. _"We would have called for you to come to us, but we didn't dare have you come and be affected. We did try to contact you, but whenever we did the 'phone would go out. The letter we sent came back mangled by the post."_

Privately, Laura and Sorry considered this predicament. They would have to work at night, when Kate was asleep. And how would they work to strengthen the shield on the farm or push back what had come for it when they were so far away? Working magic at a distance came with risks. But they didn't dare let this go any longer.

 _"We'll talk more tonight,"_ Winter decreed. 

On the surface, they passed the day easily enough. Both Laura and Sorry had the day off, Laura because she had taken a few days off to spend with Kate, and Sorry because even conservation workers got weekends sometimes. Laura and Kate worked in the garden while Sorry kept his mother and grandmother busy somewhere inside. By the time they were all ready for bed it seemed, at least to anyone who didn't know any better, as if it had been a completely normal day.

Laura wasn't certain whether her mother turned in early because she genuinely wanted to or if one of the older witches had put a subtle suggestion into her mind. She might have protested, but she knew the situation was pressing and it wasn't a terribly invasive sort of thing if they'd done it. Just a little nudge in the direction of the guest bedroom off the kitchen.

With Kate safely in the guest room, Laura, Sorry, Winter, and Miryam gathered together in the office upstairs. They had no sooner gotten up there, when Laura tensed, all at once hot and cold, her skin prickling. She frowned, feeling the wards on their own home bend inwards somehow. Sorry was scowling, looking at his mother and grandmother.

"You brought it with you!" he hissed. "It's not after the land, it's after one of you!"

Winter and Miryam both looked somewhat offended by even the idea that they might have brought danger to their son and daughter-in-law, but that faded as they both considered the possibilities. After a moment of silent conference, Winter sighed. 

"It is possible," she said quietly, and Laura was slightly amused to see astonishment on Sorry's face, as if he'd never expected his grandmother to admit a mistake in her magical knowledge. But Laura knew both Winter and Miryam were well aware of how capable they were of lapses in judgement, of not considering every angle. The trouble was that the two older Carlisles spent so much time shut up together on the farm. It limited their views of the world sometimes. Laura herself preferred to be out in it, working with the people who needed her. 

"Well, now what do we do?" Laura asked, quickly diverting everyone from wallowing in guilt over having missed something. "We have to determine what it is and how to get rid of it. With all four of us now we should be able to manage something."

"You must have made an enemy at some point," Sorry told them. "Or a rival? Has anyone ever tried to take the farm, or have you ever done anything to someone else?"

Winter and Miryam looked at each other, then at Laura and Sorry.

"It's hard to avoid after all this time," Winter explained. "It happens. I can think of one or two who might send something after us. I thought we'd warded against them though."

"It could be an elemental spirit," Laura suggested. "They can be corrupted, and it's hard to ward against them, being nature-based."

"It would explain the bad luck," Miryam mused. "Affecting the trees, that poor rabbit we found…"

"So unfocused," Winter agreed. "Well. If it's a corrupted elemental, we can take care of that. Four is just the right number in fact, one for each of the elements."

Laura nodded and went to go and put some protections on the guest room. Winter and Miryam knew where to find what they needed and Laura was well capable of handling her own part quickly. She'd never dealt with a corrupt elemental but she'd learned about them from others, and she'd encountered a few uncorrupted ones on her own, out camping with Sorry. So long as you were respectful, they tended just to be curious forces. Corruption happened when no one respected them, when their home environments were ruined. Usually they didn't have the strength to do much, but every so often, they drifted. Why one had fixated on Winter or Miryam, Laura wasn't sure, but here it was.

"How do we handle this?" Sorry asked, joining her as she dug in the garden, filling a stone dish with the rich soil they'd been encouraging since moving here. Sorry held a stone bowl filled with water from the stream nearby. 

"We make it a new, uncorrupted home and hope that it takes it," Miryam said, coming out from the house with a lit candle in her hands. Laura and Sorry had made it themselves years back, starting from scratch, even the wicks. Winter followed Miryam out of the house, holding a large scarf. Laura had woven it the previous winter and now she was glad that she had. She hadn't been sure at the time why she needed to do it, but she'd bought a small loom, taught herself to use it without magic, then made three scarves. One for Sorry, one for Jacko, and this one here. Winter held it up in the breeze that came through the back garden in the middle of the night and it billowed, catching the wind. Winter gathered it up by the corners and the wind stayed in it, making it swell like a balloon.

Laura walked to one corner of the garden, dish of soil in her hands. Sorry, Winter, and Miryam each walked to another corner, their own items held up in front of them. Laura looked across the darkened garden at Sorry and together they brought down the wards around their home. 

It only took a moment for the dark force to descend upon them, blacking out the sky over the house and garden. Winter and Miryam had started a working to draw it to them, while Laura and Sorry shielded the house as best they could.

One by one, each of them felt it surround them, snuffing out the candle, blowing the soil from the dish in Laura's hands, boiling the water in the bowl Sorry held. Finally, it settled on Winter, blotting her out from their sight as the wind picked up. Even without seeing it, Laura was certain it was roiling around Winter, trying to overtake her.

They all felt it push and rage and snarl and then, wisp by wisp, the darkness cleared, flowing around Winter now in a wind they could see, but which would have been invisible to any normal people. The elemental tugged at the corners of the scarf in Winter's hands, the fringe blowing wildly around. Winter let go of the scarf and the wind carried it up into the air over the garden so it danced on gusts, then finally settled, draping itself over the beanpoles in the vegetable patch.

But the wind was still there, blowing through the garden, picking up speed, then dropping. It whipped around all four, snarling hair and pulling at clothes, and then it was gone. Laura set the stone dish on the garden table as Sorry did the same with the bowl. Miryam produced a light with one hand to inspect the candle, then set it down on the table as well.

Winter retrieved the scarf and folded it gently, taking care with it as if it were made of the most delicate fibers on earth, not out of the local wool Laura had bought from a neighboring farm. She brought it over and held it out to Laura.

"You'll need to keep it out here. It seems the elemental has chosen the airways around your home. It will know the scarf. Would that we could have healed it on the farm. It's always nice to have a protective elemental nearby."

Laura took the scarf and hugged it to her chest. Something made her look to the back door of the house then. It wasn't a noise so much as a feeling of being watched. And there in the doorway was her mother. Kate stood there, staring out at the four in the garden, her daughter, her son-in-law, and her son-in-law's ever so odd mother and grandmother. They were lit by the waxing moon and the stars above, well enough that Kate could have seen some of what was happening. 

Going over to her, Laura held out a hand to her mother.

"I told you, Mum. Those warnings, I used to get? I told you there were things going on that couldn't be explained. I told you Sorry was a witch."

Kate stared at her, then out at the other three in the garden. Winter stepped forward, raised one hand, and Kate slumped down, caught by Laura, who had expected something like this.

When they got Kate back into bed and had raised the wards on their home again, Laura, Sorry, Winter, and Miryam gathered in the kitchen while Sorry made tea and Laura dug around in the cupboards for some biscuits she knew she'd bought the week before. Only half the packet remained when she found them and Sorry gave her a sheepish grin when she put them out on a plate and handed it round.

"What now?" she asked, keeping her voice down with her mother just in the next room.

"She will think it a dream, if you let her," Miryam told her, passing the biscuits on to Winter. "It will fade in time. She's already forgetting about it."

"Not my doing!" Winter assured Laura. She didn't take a biscuit, but did pour herself more tea. "It's just the way her mind works. Of course, if you press her, she will remember. The forgetting will only happen if you don't remind her. It's like strengthening a muscle. If you keep using it, it will build."

Laura pondered this while she dipped a biscuit in her tea and took a bite.

"I should tell her," she said finally. "She may not listen, she never did before, but I should tell her. It doesn't feel right, keeping her in the dark, now that she's actually seen us at it."

Laura felt Sorry's comforting presence at her side as he put an arm around her waist and kissed the side of her head. She knew that he would back her up if need be.

"Then we will stay, and explain ourselves," Miryam assured her, having seen that Laura had Sorry's support. "It is the least we can do after bringing this to your home."

"And then we must see if we can work out just where it came from, and why it wanted me," Winter said. "I felt something when it was all around me, but it faded before it became clear. Yes. After we explain things to your mother, we will get to the bottom of this. At least you got a new guardian out of it."

"Yes, there is that," Laura said. "Now, I'm going to get some sleep. Morning soon, and lots of talking. We're all always tired, after a working. The rest will wait until tomorrow. Good night Winter, Miryam."

In their own bedroom, with Winter asleep on the office pull-out bed and Miryam on the couch, Laura turned to face Sorry in the dark. "Is it the right choice?" she asked him.

"It's what you feel is right," Sorry told her. "And you know as well as I do, that out of the four of us, you're the most likely to know right and wrong on family matters. Trust your instincts. It'll work out if it's meant to."

Laura nodded and settled into bed, one arm flung over Sorry's chest. That was the thing about magic: If it was meant to work, it did. But her mother wasn't magic. She was unpredictable. And Laura liked that. Even with magic at her fingertips, it never hurt to have the unpredictable in the normal world to keep her on her toes.


End file.
